Zataban plays fewer clubs than most bands

Thursday

Jan 3, 2013 at 12:01 AM

The Greenville music scene has both veterans and newcomers, but few bands have as lengthy a history as Zataban.

By VINCENT HARRISFor the Herald-Journal

The Greenville music scene has both veterans and newcomers, but few bands have as lengthy a history as Zataban.The band features keyboardist Patrick Purnell, who has been making music in the Upstate since 1990, mostly with Zataban guitarist Kym MacKinnon.The group's rhythm section is composed of bassist Frank Wilkie, most notably of Garfeel Ruff and the Marshall Tucker Band, and Tez Sherard, who does double duty as the drummer for the Gypsy Souls, which also includes Wilkie and MacKinnon.Between the four of them, Purnell reckons that they've played in “dozens of bands.” But it was a love of blues and some fortunate circumstances that brought them together.In the early 1990s, Purnell began playing with MacKinnon, who had been a member of the Electric City Blues band.“Back when I first moved to Greenville, I met Kym, and we've been playing in bands ever since,” Purnell says.“And in 2002, our bass player died of cancer. We tried to keep the band together, but we really weren't doing much of anything.“And then Kym met Frank Wilkie and started playing guitar for the Gypsy Souls, which also had Tez on drums. And I believe really the way it started was they asked me to sit in with them.”Purnell says that initial, one-night appearance sparked a conversation that fueled a whole new project.“We talked among ourselves and decided that what we really wanted to do was something that was more blues-oriented,” Purnell says. “Kym and I, our background was in blues music, so this project was really designed to be more focused on the blues. And it needed to be special for all of us, because we've all played in a lot of bands.”

Zataban combines the electric blues of '60s giants such as Mike Bloomfield and the heavy-but-jazzy influence of the Marshall Tucker Band, but they're much more concise and gritty than their musical relatives, the Gypsy Souls. Zataban also doesn't play the usual grueling local-band schedule, and that's by design, luck and circumstance.“Age is probably a factor,” Purnell says with a laugh. “We're probably less willing to play in certain situations than if we were younger; let's put it that way. But also, there are a limited number of rooms available to play in unless you're willing to travel.“It's not the same music business as it was 20 years ago. There aren't as many places to play. We got into it when there were a lot of clubs in a lot of towns that were featuring live music. It seems like there are less of those now.”But Zataban is also able to write and record music as opposed to constant gigging because of a special connection.“We're able to satisfy ourselves because we have access to a recording studio, and that's where we spend a lot of our time,” Purnell says.“Buddy Strong at Southeastern Sound (in Easley) has been a real friend to the band and especially Frank, going back to the Marshall Tucker Band.“We spend more time in the studio than a lot of bands because that's what we had in mind. We play live, but our goal is to satisfy ourselves musically.“Only now are we at the point where we've started including original music, and that was the goal. We're in the studio now, doing only tunes that we've written ourselves.”